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Gastone De Boni

Biography

Gastone De Boni was born in Padova on January 22nd 1908. His adolescence years determined the direction his life was to take and somehow anticipate his long activity in Psychical Research. From an extremely young age he had been interested in Hypnotism and at 16, in 1924 he met a young man with paranormal faculties, with whom he experimented until 1930, also managing a case of spiritualistic identification. He graduated in medecine and surgery at the University of Padova in 1932 and in 1934 he began his medical career in Verona never neglecting his interest in Psychical Research. His acquaintance with Ernesto Bozzano was determining for his life. The two men soon discovered they were motivated by the same understanding of Paranormal Phenomenology, so much that the scholar from Genova indicated Gastone De Boni as heir of his library. Gastone De Boni worked to see Ernesto Bozzano's works published at a larger scale, given the importance and validity of his work.

When Ernesto Bozzano died in 1943, Gastone De Boni inherited the entire documentary collection. He concerned himself with organizing, enlarging and updating it and during the final years of his life he tried to find appropriate premises for it. Thanks to the help he received from Silvio Ravaldini, his collaborator with whom he had a strong friendship, this wish of his came true. The Library infact found an ideal position in Via Orfeo 15 in Bologna, where the Biblioteca Bozzano-De Boni (Bozzano-De Boni Library) remained for ten years. In January 1996 the Library moved to other premises, better suited for the patrimony that, during these years has been enriched and enlarged. Gastone De Boni also did all he could to create a cultural association that would manage the Library's patrimony: it was named Archivio di Documentazione Storica della Ricerca Psichica. When he died on September 23rd 1986, Silvio Ravaldini, having inherited his Library and his documentary patrimony, became president of Archivio di Documentazione Storica della Ricerca Psichica.

Gastone De Boni's activity in the field of Psychical Research was not only limited to a bibliographical collection. Not only he published Ernesto Bozzano's works, but he also revived (from January 1st 1947) and run the specialistic review Luce e Ombra - active from 1901 to 1939, when it was suppressed by the Fascist regime - for which Ernesto Bozzano himself had worked. With very few means, Gastone De Boni embarked in this activity and continued working at it untill his death, notwithstanding the economic difficulties. He gave his own, good, contribution to Psychical Research with various articles and publications. Among these is L' Uomo alla conquista dell' Anima (Man to the conquest of the Soul)[ed.Archivio di Documentazione Storica della Ricerca Psichica, Bologna, 1993], a voluminous treatise on all sectors of Parapsychology: a starting point for those interested in this field of research.

Details

• Bibliography of Gastone De Boni

  
  

• History of the Archivio di Documentazione Storica della Ricerca Psichica

  
  

• Biography of Ernesto Bozzano, his bibliography and list of some his articles recently published.

  
  

• History of the Biblioteca Bozzano-De Boni (Bozzano-De Boni Library) and its activities.

  
  

• The magazine Luce e Ombra: its history, subscription formalities, indexes of the issues available from 1947, indexes of the last issues and summaries of the articles; the initiatives for the centenary.

  
  

• Definition and brief history of Psychical Research (in Italian)

  
  

Italian Version

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Bologna, December 16th 1996

Last update June 28th 2008

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